Given this thread has fallen to page 7, I'm tempted to start a new one...but I'll give this a shot first.

Just started playing pro guitar (on the Madcatz, not the Squier). Is it just me, or is the notation...bad? I understand they wanted to keep the waterfall of notes interface, but it seems completely unsuited to what they're now trying to display. Trying to map left/right on screen to up/down with my hands - while trying to map numbers to left/right on my fretting hand - is driving me insane. This is probably worse for me since I've never actually touched a real guitar in my life (my real music experience is limited to piano), so I've got no muscle memory helping find strings or frets.

But when the on-screen note shifts right, I have to fight to remember that it doesn't mean shift my fretting hand right, it means shift a finger down. If the number goes up, that means shift my hand right.

Ugh

I was sort of hoping to be able to progress slowly through the trainers, which worked through playing HBtB on easy - but the next set of lessons, even slowed all the way down, is proving to just be a wall.

It's a tough thing to read. I use it more for figuring out finger placement and building muscle memory than anything else.

Yeah, I assumed that this would be a matter of learning song by song, hopefully increasing in difficulty over time. I'm under no illusions that I'll be able to beat songs first time through on expert (or even easy), much like I can't take a piece of moderately complex sheet music and rattle it off on a piano.

But when I can't even get through a simple practice riff on the slowest setting after a half dozen tries, because I just can't map the directions on screen to my fingers, it is a bit frustrating. Makes it difficult to get to the "building muscle memory" part.

Of course, let's not underestimate the possibility that I'm just not very good.

Friends of mine are (as of this post) playing through all of the pro guitar tracks available.

All of them.

In a row.

For Child's Play (via Umloud).

The thing with the pro guitar charts is really just a reminder, there's really no way to sightread that stuff. If it's like me playing the pro keys, it mostly just becomes a matter of "learn this one specific song". Although, one of our friends is some kind of savant and will sightread demon heads on pro keys. He's terrifying.

Make sure you have all the numbers turned on, not just the initial number with the wave. It defaults to off, but I think they just did that to keep from scaring people.

"With several new titles in development and developers needed to usher these new games along, April 2nd will be the last weekly DLC release for Rock Band."

I guess it was a matter of time. I'm wondering if they'll go somewhere else with this franchise, but my mind isn't able to come up with anything that's as fun as Rock Band, but more like learning a real instrument. I haven't bought any DLC in ages because there's been very little that's interested me.

I guess it was a matter of time. I'm wondering if they'll go somewhere else with this franchise, but my mind isn't able to come up with anything that's as fun as Rock Band, but more like learning a real instrument.

Well. The first six months sucks but it is eventually more fun. Tried playing RB3 a couple of weeks ago and it just wasn't happening. Even on expert there was a disconnect from what you're hearing and what the gems are telling you to do. But god bless, good times, sweetness, all that. Thanks Rock Band.

XaiaX wrote:

AKA, they're waiting for people to get nostalgic about it so they can develop a new one and have everyone go, "dang, it's been forever since I played that ... "

I'm reeeaaallly hoping they get a deal figured out with Sony/MS so that whenever they do get around to making RB4 on the upcoming generation of consoles that DLC will still transfer.

I wouldn't think that it would by the platform holders that would be the issue. Yes, there might be an initial set-up cost to Harmonix but there's how many pieces of DLC that could potentially be purchased from day 1?

When it comes to issues like not bringing forward Virtual Console titles without a fee I'd expect that's more because the rights holders want to get another cut from us (though Ninty may want to offset bandwidth costs as well).

Even on expert there was a disconnect from what you're hearing and what the gems are telling you to do.

I've gotten to the point where I've got Superior Drummer and a midi kit running, and I've figured out how to remap the drums so that I can play open hat on the kit and have SD treat it as open hat, and the game treat it as ride/blue cymbal. (two presets, one where hat is always yellow, one where open is blue) And then I set the "instrument" audio in the game to 0, but leave the "background music" at 100%, and then pipe them together through the speakers.

As a result, I hear what I'm *actually* playing on my drums, and the game registers what I'm playing to the "correct" notes. (It's a little wonky when you have a green ride or blue crash. Blue crash is easy to fix, though, I just need to add a 4th cymbal. Green ride, or worse green HIGH HAT -- eff you Don't Stop Believing -- is a bit more of a pain)

What's hilarious is when the drums I'm playing don't sound ANYTHING like the synth set that some of the songs use. So you'll get like Freezepop or La Roux doing their synth thing, but with what sounds like an acoustic kit playing the drums. Also, red/yellow charting for snare flams sounds weird. (And you have to turn off drum fills or you'll get the drum sounds from the game as well as from the midi)

I imagine you could do a similar thing with the keys, or with the guitar.

Oh, the really hilarious bit is when I play something like Through The Fire And Flames on Hard instead of Expert, since the game doesn't fill in the notes you're not playing, you get to hear what "Hard" actually sounds like.

It sounds a lot like I CAN DRUMMING!

--

But, it's also helped me figure out when I'm playing just a BIT off, and get my timing better. Since you only hear what you ACTUALLY play, the game may give you credit for hitting the note correctly, but you can hear if you played it too early, or too late, or if you're not doing a swing bit correctly, or if you're putting swing on something that doesn't use it, etc. I beat some of my high scores pretty quickly after trying this way.

It's kind of a pain to set up, though. It's really satisfying to play a song and actually be the one doing all the work.

Next stop, not relying on reading the chart so dang much.

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If you're on Xbox, there's a vibrant customs scene out there pulling in tracks from guitar hero or just the damn ether. We had a party the other day, and we played Paradise City, Beat It, a bunch of Muse, and a ton of other tracks that aren't FOR REALS. Seems like they've even got all of the beatles charted for customs as well. (Might even be some with Keys)

Then there's the Rock Band Harmonies Project.

Customs require no later than title update 4 (you can revert, if you know how) but the Harmonies project doesn't have any limitations, it just requires some fiddling with the song cache. Playing Boston songs with Harmonies was pretty awesome. They've even fixed the pro drum charting on some songs like Homecoming by Green Day. (Long snare roll ended up charted to yellow cymbal)

This is the second time I've heard about the customs scene, but the first time I've heard an endorsement for the selection. So how's the charting? Is it all expert-only, guitar-only like some of the Frets on Fire stuff, or is it full band, all difficulties?

Rockband represented, like MTV, what's wrong with the music industry. This... conglomerate... of lawyers that doesn't actually produce anything, but somehow represents artists (I mean, how much have how many artists made from the settlements against file sharers? I believe it's still zero) has basically wrecked, first MTV to where they couldn't profitably show videos, and a few other little things along the way (they're probably to blame for why radio plays so many ads and the same six songs every hour), and now Rockband. Basically, unless you're part of this group, there's no sustainable profit in music. Harmonix really tried, but they could never get us all the songs we wanted. They got a few good ones, but they always seemed to get that one song that nobody asked for off that album that nobody really bought, because that was the best the record label was willing to license. See Muse. See Nightwish. See a bunch of others.

I suspect, as others have said, that a lack of portability to the next console generation, was a part of the decline. The announcement came around the time of the PS4 announcement, and just a couple months before the upcoming Next Xbox announcement. I speculate that it was determined that the next consoles could not import all the DLC for nothing or next to it. I don't know what Harmonix's relationship is with Sony (about the same as any third-party developer, I guess) but they are working closely with Microsoft for Dance Central; it isn't officially, but sure feels like the flagship Kinect title. It seems to me that DLC should be generation agnostic, but the fact that it most definitely is not and that the console makers are most assuredly laughing at Rockband players all the way to the bank reassures me that my move from Xbox to PC was the right one. A lot of what was wrong with the Rockband franchise would not have flown on the PC, which is probably a big part of why it was never made available to the PC. I just hope we get to a stage with console emulation where Rockband (and all the DLC) can be played on the PC, so those of us who did put hundreds or thousands of dollars in can continue to play after the consoles fail.

Still, we *finally* got Silent Lucidity by Queensryche this week. But no DLC next week, just repeats. Kind of sad, they only have about a month of DLC releases left, but how many weeks will just be repeats? Supposedly there will be "something fitting" for the last week, implying the last week will be a new release, but what of the weeks before? 3/5 is wasted, so that just leaves 3/12, 3/19, 3/26, and the final, 4/2. Four more weeks...

Anyway, moving on.... Chevelle came out with a 3-pack this week, supposedly it's the last pack. My wife says it's confirmed the last song will be "American Pie" and that they played it at PAX East? I don't know how solid that is, but we'll find out in about 14 hours, I suppose.

My wife bought the Chevelle pack (I no longer consider myself an active Rockband player; I consider myself a retired vocalist, but I still sing on expert) and I now own three gold-star, top-100 scores, and it's safe to say I am out of practice. I nearly FC'd each of them, but for a couple mistakes that were my own fault on The Red and the new one. Send the Pain Below has a couple "cheap shots" that will get you on the sight read if you're not very good (I'm not, never was). You know The Red and Send the Pain Below if you've listened to rock radio in the last 10 years. If not, it's like Staind but a little heavier (well, new Staind, not "Mudshovel" Staind). As for "Face to the Floor", it struck both my wife and I as having a real Tool vibe. If you want Tool in Rockband for the sound more than any specific song (and let's face it, we're not getting Aenima, Prison Sex, or Sober), this one is actually pretty good. I'm not a Chevelle fan at all. Saw them live once, I was there for Disturbed, they were about average as far as performing rock bands go. But I know two of the songs and was glad to sing them. Drumming looked pretty simple, but I wasn't watching the drum lanes (and never got above medium standard/easy pro anyway, so my opinion on drum charts is probably worthless -- although it's the expert pro charts my wife plays).

My friend got "Dream On" which they FINALLY released (it is, however, a live version--which is probably due to legal issues over the studio version). Still haven't had a chance to play it yet, but I'm looking forward to the next time we get a chance to get together.

Dream On is kinda weird on the live version. Tyler sings it in a very different way, but apparently it's how he always sings it live.

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This is the second time I've heard about the customs scene, but the first time I've heard an endorsement for the selection. So how's the charting? Is it all expert-only, guitar-only like some of the Frets on Fire stuff, or is it full band, all difficulties?

Missed this Q before.

I have Rolling In The Deep. It's charted for everything, including pro keys and vocal harmonies. Someone put out the entirety of Hootie & The Blowfish's Cracked Rearview. And if you don't want to play Let Her Cry then I don't know WTF is even wrong with you, stop fronting.

A lot of songs will have "pro" keys charts that are just the 5 regular keys bunched up across 3 white and 2 black keys starting at the same spot, so those are kind of hilariously awkward to play. Apparently the authoring software demands a pro keys chart to validate, but you can remove it from the build data later and have a track with Keys but no Pro Keys.

The charting varies a bit. I've seen two different versions of Gangnam Style. One with keys/drums/vocals and one with everything, where they just split up the synth across guitar/bass/keys. Some of them chart multiple difficulty levels, some just do expert only. It kinda doesn't matter, though, since most of the customs don't distinguish for parts, and don't mute anything if you miss, so apart from "miss sounds" you don't actually hear any errors. Some, however, will split the source track into several parts so that when played all together it sounds normal, but if anyone misses their part, the whole song gets a little quieter. Some seem to split the difference, but I think that's just the Aerosmith stuff, actually. Since they had their own game where there were guitar/bass stems and "other" stems, they can cut out the bass/guitar part but not any of the other stuff. I have noticed some kind of bad charting on the drums in a few cases. I was really sad to discover that whoever charted Rollin' In The Deep mapped the ride at the end to the yellow cymbal as if it were a high hat. There's also some cases where the pro keys don't shift at the right time and you'll see notes coming down the chart that aren't in a visible lane. (This happened on Let It Be.) I know, playing the world's smallest violin in sympathy of slightly goofy keys charts in a beatles song in RB3. Boo hoo. Woe is me.

I'm kind of surprised I haven't seen people take tracks like Don't Stop Believing and cut in Keys charts using the stems from the game and just a silent keys part. (Or mapping keys to the "background" track) I've been getting mine from a friend, though, so maybe he just hasn't looked.

There are even a very few custom pro guitar charts, but I haven't bothered with that since I just drums.

A lot of the customs are just from cracked Guitar Hero tracks. They've apparently broken the format for every version except the latest one, so there's full independent stems for tons of older GH stuff. All the Muse is taken from there, it seems (And is part of what makes me wonder about adding keys charts to something like Don't Stop Believing, since they've added Keys to Muse even though it's not charted in the originals, there's also some GH:Metallica tracks like No Leaf Clover and Unforgiven that have keys/strings)

That's one reason I was a little sad when I realized the last RB song would be American Pie, since I already have it in a customs track. However, it's the GH version that has "whiskey" censored for no damn reason, and there's no keys chart.

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(and let's face it, we're not getting Aenima, Prison Sex, or Sober),

Well, maybe you're not ...

Hm. I still have all the stems for Only and Discipline by Nine Inch Nails, since Trent released those for people to do whatever with. I guess I could contribute to the customs scene ...

Definitely like Hootie, although I made fun of them when that album was new.

I kind of want to do customs, but it's up to my wife. Her Xbox. How would you rate the chances of getting caught (and your Xbox or Live account banned) using customs? That's the first thing my wife will ask.

I would sing Gangnam Style on Rockband, mainly for the challenge. What I'd really like to sing is "Dragonborn", the theme from Skyrim. It's in Dovah, or the dragon tongue, although that seems mostly based on European languages (e.g. Norse). It's not quite as exotic, to an American, as Korean, I don't think. I would think Gangnam Style would be more challenging than Dragonborn, aside from having more lines.

I kind of want to do customs, but it's up to my wife. Her Xbox. How would you rate the chances of getting caught (and your Xbox or Live account banned) using customs? That's the first thing my wife will ask.

Zero. It doesn't require any modding of the console, just making sure you're only on Title Update 4. If you try to start the game with Title Update 4, it'll prompt you to get Title Update 5, or get off XBLA. (So you get off XBLA, basically. Or just don't connect in the first place, which you won't be able to do anyway because of the title update.) Worst case, you ditch the title updates completely and go with whatever's on your disc. (Launch for me.) Title Update 4 is floating around out there and you just need the software to read the memory card format to add it there, apparently.

I just have all of mine on a separate hard drive, with a local-only account. I haven't bothered to set it up to use both the customs and the DLC I've bought, yet.

I suppose with the forum rules you can't really say HOW you can do all this... Well, it doesn't matter too much. I mentioned it to my wife, and she wasn't interested. Now she's drunk and came across some materials. Apparently some group called Rapture, or maybe that's the event, she's seeing all this custom stuff. I'm leaving it all up to her, and she keeps seeing more stuff she wants. Three Days Grace, Paramore, Metallica, California Love (Tupac/Dre), Trapt, Weird Al, Will Smith... It's her Xbox though, so if she wants to do this, she's gonna have to come to me asking to do it. I really don't care too much... I sang "American Pie" and my throat still hates me 2 days later. I'd rather just kill some dragons... but customs might get me back into RB. Don't tell her though.

So these sites that offer the custom chart (or is it just one of them?) only offer the charts, and you have to supply your own .mp3 or .ogg? Because I know Rockband uses .mogg, the multi-channel Ogg Vorbis file. I had a few of them at one point. Real fun to open them in Audacity and play around with them.

Funny thing about ripping CDs, I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to figure out how to rip a CD the other day. I've just used Windows Media Player for so long, trading the depth of the options of whatever I used before for WMP's simplicity. But my wife picked up an independent rock group's CD at a show, and WMP incorrectly identified it. I thought that would be a problem, but I just ripped it anyway and changed the ID3 tags manually (well, with mp3Tag). I actually initially ripped to WMA, because I hadn't configured it since I last installed Windows, I've just been buying digital from Amazon or Google.

I did the private profile Xbox thing once, so I know kind of what you mean. I might even have the app laying around. There is actually a mod for Fallout 3 that works for the Xbox. It sets you at level 30 with a ton of perks (including both of the per-gender ones) and ramps the difficulty way up. It was fun for a minute, but got old, fast. Modio's the name of the program I used.

Okay, XaiaX, I'm in with the customs and I've downloaded a bunch. But it just dawned on me that I have yet to actually see any Hootie and the Blowfish. I've been on C3 and GHtoRB3. Is there another repo out there I don't know about? It occurred to me because I'm on someone's private GDocs spreadsheet and it *mentions* the Hootie pack, but there's no link. Got a bunch of other stuff though!

My friend got "Dream On" which they FINALLY released (it is, however, a live version--which is probably due to legal issues over the studio version). Still haven't had a chance to play it yet, but I'm looking forward to the next time we get a chance to get together.

Okay, XaiaX, I'm in with the customs and I've downloaded a bunch. But it just dawned on me that I have yet to actually see any Hootie and the Blowfish. I've been on C3 and GHtoRB3. Is there another repo out there I don't know about? It occurred to me because I'm on someone's private GDocs spreadsheet and it *mentions* the Hootie pack, but there's no link. Got a bunch of other stuff though!

I have no idea where they got it, I just got it from a friend of mine.

At least I think I did, I haven't actually double checked what's on that drive. It might just be a dozen GB of horse porn.

My friend got "Dream On" which they FINALLY released (it is, however, a live version--which is probably due to legal issues over the studio version). Still haven't had a chance to play it yet, but I'm looking forward to the next time we get a chance to get together.

[I]t just dawned on me that I have yet to actually see any Hootie and the Blowfish. I've been on C3 and GHtoRB3. Is there another repo out there I don't know about? It occurred to me because I'm on someone's private GDocs spreadsheet and it *mentions* the Hootie pack, but there's no link. Got a bunch of other stuff though!

I have no idea where they got it, I just got it from a friend of mine.

At least I think I did, I haven't actually double checked what's on that drive. It might just be a dozen GB of horse porn.

Eh, I'm going to go ahead and say you can just hold onto that then, haha.

I asked about the Hootie pack on the forum for the C3 group, and the guy said they pulled the pack to work on it. Something about FtV if that means anything to you. So it's coming back.

Something about FtV if that means anything to you. So it's coming back.

No idea.

I know it had fake pro keys. (They just mapped the 5 regular keys notes to the pro keys charts, so they weren't even vaguely realistic. It's just crammed little 3 white keys with the two black keys between each pair. It's pretty silly, but I suppose if you're trying for pro keys goals it might be handy?)

I can't help but think it's F_____ to/the Vocals. Lowercase T means it's probably a "To" or "The." Finish the vocals? I imagine vocals would be a one-shot deal. Set the pitch expected, and lower difficulties simply allow more tolerance. (That is just my assumption.) Fine-tune the vocals? I dunno.

RB Customs would be a great way to cheese any goal. Five second song. One note. Hit it, and there's your FC on any difficulty, any instrument. Do one for each genre. Do six for each genre.

From The Vault. Several of the release postings since the customs website went live in April have contained tracks labeled as such. It signifies customs they had previously released but are re-releasing for various reasons.